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January 3, 2023

Research

UW-Madison engineers use carbon nanotubes to better protect against brain injuries

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have developed a new shock-absorbing foam made from carbon nanotubes aimed at reducing traumatic brain injuries in U.S. soldiers. The material has been shown to absorb shock 18 times better than existing military helmet liners and could also offer athletes better protection against concussions.

In order to tackle big issues like brain injuries on the battlefront, UW-Madison associate professor of engineering and physics Ramathasan Thevamaran thinks small — as in micrometers. He and fellow engineers at the university have developed a way to make flexible carbon tubes, around a thousand times smaller than a human hair, into a new type of ultra-shock-absorbing foam.

UW-Madison researcher says drone-delivered defibrillators can save lives

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

When a heart stops, survival rates fall with every passing minute. A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher thinks minutes and lives can be saved in rural areas with fleets of autonomous drones equipped with defibrillators.

And saving lives is in UW-Madison assistant professor and researcher Justin Boutilier’s blood. When he was growing up in Canada, his mother was a nurse and his father was a paramedic and firefighter.

How did the pandemic affect the Corona Beer brand?

Posted on
Marketplace

A group of researchers from the University of Kentucky, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ohio State University actually set out to study how consumers reacted to the beer brand after its name became inadvertently associated with the coronavirus.

Suicide rates for LGBTQ+ teens dropped during online learning, but they’re still alarming

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

UW doctoral student Erin Gill and assistant professor Mollie McQuillan, who authored the study, said finding solutions is particularly important as anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric increases, especially surrounding youth and schools — from lawsuits over school districts’ gender identity policies and discourse in the 2022 gubernatorial race to efforts to repeal sex education curriculum and challenges to children’s Pride displays in libraries.

Madison Children’s Museum to lead climate change project

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

“Caretakers of Wonder” will be grounded in expert research from UW-Madison, including work by Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds, and Jonathan Patz, professor of environmental studies and medicine and public health at the Global Health Institute and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. David Sobel, professor emeritus at Antioch University New England, is also a key player.

Do you really need 8 cups of water a day? UW study weighs in

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

It depends on what food and other beverages you consume, along with factors such as your age, sex, size, physical activity and climate, a study involving UW-Madison researchers says.

The study analyzed 5,600 people in 26 counties, looking at their water turnover, or the amount they took in and lost each day. Subjects drank water labeled with hydrogen and oxygen isotopes, a method first used in people at UW-Madison in the 1980s, allowing scientists to track water replacement and calories burned.

Higher Education/System

Agriculture

‘It landed in the checking account’: Wisconsin farm economist, lender say 2022 was a good year for ag

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Even after a year of record high inflation, economic forecasts show 2022 was a good year to be farming.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service estimated that national net farm income will reach $160.5 billion for the year. That’s 13.8 percent higher than in 2021 and roughly 50 percent higher than the 20-year average, according to ag economist Paul Mitchell.

Mitchell, who leads the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said part of the prosperity comes from COVID-19 aid from the federal government, which helped kick-start demand after an initial downturn at the start of the pandemic.

“We’ve had unprecedented levels of commodity support for agriculture for a couple years and then really good prices,” he said.

Community

Q&A: Author and UW prof Beth Nguyen finds a new perspective

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Growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in a predominantly white community, Beth Nguyen began grappling with her identity at an early age.

At 8 months old, she and her family fled Vietnam by ship after the fall of Saigon, eventually immigrating to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Nguyen detailed that journey, her coming of age and her longing to fit in as an American in her award-winning debut memoir “Stealing Buddha’s Dinner,” published in 2007.

Now an English and Asian American studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nguyen teaches others how to shape their own thoughts and experiences into meaningful stories. “Find that perspective,” she encourages them. “Meld into it. Use it.”

Health

Athletics

Alex Ovechkin has hat trick, Capitals rout Canadiens 9-2

Posted on
AP

Wisconsin native and former University of Wisconsin star Cole Caufield scored his 20th and 21st goals of the season for the Canadiens in their fifth consecutive loss. He’s the first Montreal player to reach 20 goals in 37 of fewer games since Martin Rucinsky and Brian Savage in 1995-96.

Opinion

UW Experts in the News

Fact check: Post falsely links WI military votes to election tampering

Posted on
USA Today

Such a comparison is inappropriate because of turnout differences in both elections, Barry Burden, a politics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA TODAY in an email.

“Turnout of military and especially non-military voters is far higher in a presidential contest because of the intensity, visibility and national importance of a presidential election,” Burden said. “Military voters in particular tend to be less involved in non-presidential elections because their deployments take them away from the everyday news of state politics.”

Private investors, Rising Rents

Posted on
The Washington Post

These firms “have an incentive to raise rents as quickly as they can so that they can get the next buyer to pay more,” said Michael Brennan, chairman of the Brennan Investment Group, a real estate firm, and director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Other owners, he said, are “not as maniacally focused on getting the last nickel as quickly as they can.”

When To Use Your Rainy Day Fund During A Recession

Posted on
Forbes Advisor

Households need to start behaving a bit like a company would, says J. Michael Collins, faculty director of the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As a head of the household “company,” you decide when to spend your earnings and where you need to cut expenses first.

Best Kids TV Shows And Cartoons for Toddlers

Posted on
Fatherly

“The main key, as in all parenting, is to know your kid,” says Marie-Louise Mares professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Some kids are pretty easily scared, others really love excitement, some adore anything to do with trucks, others are crazy about puppies.”

UW-Madison Related

Tone Madison issues retractions and corrections in light of ethnic fraud revelations

Posted on
Tone Madison

LeClaire, under the byline nibiiwakamigkwe, authored a commentary article for Tone Madison in November 2021 about the raising of the Ho-Chunk Nation flag on the UW-Madison campus. We can no longer stand behind this commentary, because in the piece LeClaire falsely presents themselves as an Indigenous person. By publishing this article, Tone Madison presented LeClaire as a credible voice on the experiences of Indigenous people in Madison and on the UW campus. We apologize for our role in creating this harm.

Madison Indigenous arts leader, activist revealed as white

Posted on
Madison365

In addition to becoming a member and co-owner of giige, LeClaire earned several artists’ stipends, a paid residency at the University of Wisconsin, a place on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force and many speaking gigs and art exhibitions, not to mention a platform and trust of a community – all based on an ethnic identity that appears to have been fully fabricated.